iC-NW-Jj, 

*B    274    MSM 


PSYCHO-PHONE 

_  MESSAGES  __ 


RECORDED  BY 

FRANCIS  GRIERSON 


Spiritual  Messages  from  the  late 
General  U.  S.  Grant,  on  Adequate 
Preparation  in  America;  Thomas  Jef- 
ferson, on  the  Future  of  American  De- 
mocracy; Benjamin  Disraeli,  on  English 
and  Irish  Affairs ;  Prince  Bismarck,  on 
the  Indemnities ;  John  Marshall,  on  the 
Psychology  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States;  Alexander  Hamil- 
ton, on  the  Forces  that  Precede  Revo- 
lution ;  Abraham  Lincoln,  on  the  Future 
of  Mexico;  Robert  Ingersoll,  on  Our 
Great  Women;  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
on  the  New  Puritanism;  Benjamin 
Wade,  of  Ohio,  on  President  Harding ; 
General  B.  H.  Grierson,  on  Japan, 
Mexico  and  California,  etc. 


GIFT  OF 
VK 


PSYCHO-PHONE 
MESSAGES 

RECORDED  BY 

FRANCIS  GRIERSON 


Published  by 
AUSTIN  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

Los  Angeles,  California 


GIFT 


Copyright,  June  1921 
By  B.  F.  Austin 


INTRODUCTION 

The  word  "psycho-phone"  was  first  sug- 
gested and  used  by  Mr.  Francis  Grierson  in  a 
lecture  I  heard  him  deliver  before  the  Toron- 
to Theosophical  Society,  August  31st,  1919, 
a  year  before  Thomas  Edison  announced  his 
intention  of  devising  an  instrument  which  he 
hopes  will  serve  to  establish  intercourse  be- 
tween our  world  and  the  world  of  spirit. 

My  own  experiences  as  a  student  in  this 
sphere  of  psychic  research  in  Europe  and 
America,  covering  a  period  of  thirty  years, 
convince  me  that  we  have  here  a  revelation 
of  a  new  mode  of  spiritual  communication  un- 
like anything  heretofore  given  to  the  world, 
not  only  different  in  quality  but  different  in 
purpose. 

From  personal  knowledge  I  can  state  that 
the  recorder  of  these  messages  has  not  acted 
on  ideas  advanced  by  anyone  living  on  our 
plane. 

6- 


461921 


Looking  back  over  the  past  two  decades,  I 
am  led  to  believe  that  Mr.  Grierson's  predic- 
tions in  "The  Invincible  Alliance,"  and  in  that 
startling  poem,  "The  Awakening  in  West- 
minster Abbey,"  forecasting  the  war  and  the 
tragic  events  in  Ireland,  were  spiritual  and 
psycho-phonic  in  character. 

From  1909  to  1911  Francis  Grierson  was 
the  acknowledged  leading  writer  on  "The 
New  Age,"  of  London,  which  at  that  time 
had  as  contributors,  H.  G.  Wells,  Bernard 
Shaw,  Arnold  Bennett,  the  two  Chestertons, 
Hillaire  Belloc — in  one  word,  all  the  most 
prominent  writers  and  advanced  thinkers  in 
Britain,  yet  not  one  of  them  except  Mr.  Grier- 
son could  see  the  approaching  world  up- 
heaval. 

Early  in  1909  he  published  a  series  of  arti- 
cles in  that  weekly  depicting  the  coming  war, 
and  nothing  of  so  drastic  a  nature  had  ever 
appeared  in  an  English  publication.  In  the 
spring  of  1913  these  articles  were  published 
in  book  form  in  London  and  New  York  under 
the  title  of  'The  Invincible  Alliance." 

In  the  Westminster  Abbey  composition, 
published  in  "The  New  Age"  in  1910,  the 


characteristics  of  four  personalities  are 
plainly  manifest — Coleridge,  Milton,  Shelley 
and  Shakespeare — and  I  have  not  forgotten 
the  sensation  caused  by  this  great  work  in 
London  at  the  time  of  its  appearance. 

Having  had  occasion  to  study  the  social 
and  psychic  conditions  in  France,  Germany, 
Italy,  Austria  and  England  before  the  great 
war,  and  after  having  been  an  eye  witness  of 
scenes  unique  in  the  annals  of  musical  inspir- 
ation in  the  artistic  and  literary  circles  of 
Europe  as  well  as  the  most  intellectual  of 
the  royal  courts,  in  which  Mr.  Grierson  was 
the  central  figure,  I  now  have  a  better  under- 
standing of  the  work  he  accomplished  and  its 
far-reaching  import.  The  more  complex  the 
work  the  longer  must  be  the  preparation,  and 
we  are  now  confronted  with  what  will  appear 
to  many  as  the  most  interesting  phase  of 
Mr.  Grierson's  psychic  gifts,  for  the  seer  who 
ushered  in  the  new  mystical  movement  by  the 
publication  of  "Modern  Mysticism"  in  1899 
is  now  the  recorder  of  messages  which  must 
induce  thinking  and  unprejudiced  minds  to 
pause  and  consider  such  matters  in  a  new 
light,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  many  more 


messages  like  these  may  be  recorded  by  the 
same  hand. 

As  I  write,  I  have  before  me  a  unique  col- 
lection of  letters  written  to  Mr.  Grierson  by 
men  and  women  eminent  in  philosophy,  art, 
music,  literature  and  journalism,  in  Europe 
and  America.  Among  the  letters  that  Mr. 
Grierson  values  the  most  in  this  remarkable 
album  are  eight  from  members  of  the  French 
Academy,  with  Sully  Prudhomme,  winner  of 
the  first  Noble  Prize,  heading  the  list.  Which 
reminds  me  that  I  heard  him  say  one  evening 
in  Paris,  after  hearing  Mr.  Grierson's  music : 
"You  have  placed  me  on  the  threshold  of  the 
other  world.  There  are  not  words  in  the 
French  language  to  express  what  I  have  felt 
tonight!"  Up  to  that  moment  the  famous 
Academician  had  been  known  as  an  avowed 
agnostic. 

Maeterlinck  writes  that  the  first  Grierson 
volume  (in  French)  influenced  him  more  than 
any  book  he  had  ever  read.  There  are  four 
letters  from  the  Belgian  mystic. 

This  album  is  filled  with  expressions  from 
the  most  authoritative  minds  in  literature 
and  art,  as  well  as  statesmen,  soldiers  and  dip- 


lomats,  such  as  Jules  Simon,  the  Due  de 
Broglie,  Lord  Lytton,  British  ambassador  at 
Paris;  Lord  Reading,  British  ambassador  at 
Washington;  Field  Marshall  Lord  Wolseley, 
General  B.  H.  Grierson,  U.S.A.,  leading  mem- 
bers of  the  Bonaparte  family  in  Paris,  Prince 
Henri  of  Orleans  (son  of  Louis  Philippe), 
Princess  Eulalia  of  Spain,  and  crowned  heads 
who  gave  receptions  in  Mr.  Grierson's  honor 
during  the  past  thirty  years.  There  are  let- 
ters from  distinguished  Americans,  such  as 
Col.  Henry  Watterson  (who  wrote  two  long 
editorials  on  Mr.  Grierson  in  the  Louisville 
"Courier  Journal"),  Henry  Mills  Alden, 
editor  of  "Harper's  Monthly,"  Prof.  Will- 
iam James,  Marion  Reedy,  Edwin  Mark- 
ham,  Edith  Thomas,  Mary  Austin,  and  many 
leading  professors  of  Harvard,  Yale,  Colum- 
bia, Cornell,  the  Universities  of  Illinois,  Wis- 
consin and  California. 

Edwin  Bjorkman  says,  in  his  "Voices  of 
Tomorrow" : — 

"To  Francis  Grierson  belongs  the  honor  of 
having  first  attained  to  prophetic  vision  of 
the  common  goal.  In  his  first  volume,  publish- 
ed in  Paris  in  1889,  he  suggested  every  idea 


which  since  then  has  become  recognized  as 
essential  not  only  to  Bergson  and  Maeter- 
linck but  to  the  constanty  increasing  number 
of  writers  engaged  in  making  the  time  con- 
scious of  its  own  spirit.  As  we  read  essay  af- 
ter essay  it  is  as  if  we  beheld  the  globe  of  life 
revolving  slowly  between  us  and  some  un- 
known source  of  light." 

The  following  remarks  from  the  London 
"Outlook"  seem  to  me  pertinent  to  the  sub- 
ject:— 

"Grierson  is  an  Englishman,  for  he  was 
born  in  Cheshire;  Scotland  may  justly  claim 
him  in  that  he  is  a  direct  descendent  of  Sir 
Robert  Grierson,  the  famous  Laird  of  Lag, 
who  is  the  hero  of  Scott's  novel,  'The  Red 
Gauntlet';  that  America  has  had  a  part  in  the 
making  of  him  all  readers  of  that  wonderful 
book,  'The  Valley  of  Shadows,'  know;  France 
can  claim  him  since  he  began  his  musical  ca- 
reer in  Paris  and  published  his  first  book  in 
French;  but  no  special  country  can  claim  to 
have  developed  his  genius — that  is  cosmopoli- 
tan/' 

As  "Current  Opinion"  says,  in  a  long 
study :  "He  presents  a  unique  combination  of 


thinker,  writer,  artist  and  musician  who  owes 
nothing  to  any  school  or  any  master  or  sys- 
tem of  training;  and  his  experience  is  with- 
out a  parallel  in  the  intellectual  world  of  our 
day." 


LAWRENCE  WALDEMAR  TONNER, 
So.  Spring  St. 
Los  Angeles,  California. 


FOREWORD 

These  messages  were  begun  in  September, 
1920,  and  the  last  was  recorded  in  May,  1921. 
I  little  dreamed  that  many  of  the  predictions 
set  forth  would  be  verified  so  soon.  For 
names,  in  themselves,  count  for  nothing.  The 
subliminal  mind  may  assume  different  names 
on  different  occasions.  A  message  is  of  value 
exactly  in  proportion  to  the  information  im- 
parted. 

The  first  communication  from  GeneraF 
Grant  was  recorded  September  ninth.  It  is 
peremptory  in  tone,  and  contains  a  warning 
touching  the  insecurity  of  the  Panama  Canal. 
In  November  Mr.  Harding  made  a  tour  of  in- 
spection and  found  the  fortifications  of  the 
Canal  inadequate.  I  then  decided  on  the  pub- 
lication of  these  messages. 

They  deal  with  the  actual.  Take,  for  exam- 
ple, John  Marshall's  documents,  which  are 
filled  with  warnings  no  reader  with  intelli- 
gence will  attempt  to  refute,  Disraeli's  indict- 
ment of  English  statesmanship  in  recent 


times,  Lincoln's  utterances  on  affairs  in  Eu- 
rope and  Mexico,  General  Grant  on  Prepara- 
tion, Benjamin  Franklin  on  the  Privilege  of 
Liberty,  Bishop  Phillips  Brooks  on  the  Com- 
ing Ordeals,  to  name  but  a  few. 

As  a  Judge  sums  up,  regardless  of  who  may 
or  may  not  agree,  a  decision  is  rendered  ac- 
cording to  the  vision  of  the  one  who  delivers 
the  message.  Principle,  not  Party,  is  the  basis 
of  judgment. 

Witness  Disraeli's  remark  that  the  blun- 
ders committed  by  the  British  Parliament 
would  have  been  impossible  in  an  Irish  Par- 
liament in  Dublin. 

In  a  series  of  articles  in  "Nash's  Maga- 
zine" Mr.  Basil  King  suggests  that  "the 
means  of  communication  with  the  plane  next 
above  us  may  be  through  the  everlasting 
doors  which  the  subliminal  opens  upward. 
Through  these  doors  the  mind  may  go  up  and 
out;  through  these  doors  the  light  may  come 
in  and  down." 

In  our  group  of  investigators  we  have  had 
the  perseverence  essential  for  serious  devel- 
opment, and,  as  in  all  demonstrations, 
whether  physical  or  psychical,  everything  de- 


pends  on  conditions,  so  we  have  had  periods 
of  weeks  when  no  message  of  any  kind  was 
received. 

A  striking  feature  of  these  communications 
is  their  freedom  from  restraint  imposed  by 
popular  opinion.  They  contain  neither  the- 
ories nor  appeals.  Warnings  are  uttered  con- 
cerning events  and  their  inevitable  reactions. 
The  psycho-phonic  waves,  by  which  the 
messages  are  imparted,  are  as  definite  as 
those  received  by  wireless  methods. 

FRANCIS  GRIERSON. 

Los  Angeles,  California 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction 5 

Foreword 13 

Thomas  Reed,  of  Maine,  Late  Speaker  of 

the  House,  on  the  Peace  League 21 

General  U.  S.  Grant,  on  Adequate  Prep- 
aration in  America 24 

General  U.  S.  Grant  (second  message) 27 

Thomas    Jefferson,    on    the    Future    of 

American  Democracy 30 

Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton,  on  the  Future 

of  American  Women 33 

Benjamin  Franklin,  on  the  Privilege  of 

Liberty 43 

John  Marshall,  'The  Expounder  of  the 
Constitution,  on  the  Psychology  of 
the  Supreme  Court 46 

Daniel  Webster,  on  "Bohemian"  States- 
men   47 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  on  the  New  Eden 49 


Benjamin  Wade,  Late  Governor  of  Ohio, 

U.  S.  Senator,  on  President  Harding 51 

Don  Platt,  Late  Editor  of  "The  Capital," 
Washington,  D.  C.,  on  Prohibition  and 
the  Blue  Laws 55 

Benjamin  Disraeli,  on  English  and  Irish 

Affairs 58 

Prince  Bismarck,  on  Germany  and  the 

Indemnities 63 

Henry  Ward  Beecher,  on  the  New  Puri- 
tanism   70 

John  Marshall,  on  Liberty  and  the  League 

(second  message) 74 

Abraham  Lincoln,  on  the  Future  of  Mex- 
ico  79 

Robert  Ingersoll,  on  Our  Great  Women 82 

Stephen  A.  Douglass,  on  War  Between 

England  and  America 83 

General  B.  H.  Grierson,  on  Japan  and 

California 85 

Alexander  Hamilton,  on  the  Forces  that 

Precede  Revolution .  .  .89 


Phillips  Brooks,  on  The  Coming  Ordeals 93 


Psycho-phone  Messages 


THOMAS  B.  REED 

(Late  Speaker  of  the  House) 
Recorded  September  seventh,  1920. 

The  formidable  imbecility  of  the  Senate 
rivaled  the  fantastic  irritability  of  the  Presi- 
dent. 

Born  with  a  Utopian  temperament,  Mr.  Wil- 
son has  a  Herculean  passion  for  generalities 
and  a  Lilliputian  penchant  for  details. 

You  scratched  the  Teutons  at  Versailles 
and  found  a  new  species  of  Tartar;  you 
scratched  the  Japanese  and  found  a  Paci- 
fist camouflage;  you  scratched  the  Poles  and 
found  a  pianist  with  his  hair  uncut;  you 
scratched  the  French  and  found  a  tiger  with 
his  claws  undipped.  Your  mania  for  scratch- 
ing other  nations  will  keep  your  nails  mani- 
cured without  the  aid  of  scissors. 

Never  since  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence and  the  first  peal  of  the  Liberty  Bell 
did  a  chief  executive  walk  up  a  winding  stair 


22        PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

into  so  pretty  a  parlor  as  when  Mr.  Wilson, 
with  the  naivete  of  a  Princeton  president, 
faced  that  cacophony  of  sectional  jazz  bands 
to  witness  the  cryptic  hand-writing  on  the 
wall  at  the  peace  table.  Who  was  his  adviser? 
Was  it  a  gentleman  with  owl  spectacles  from 
the  oil  fields  of  Texas?  And  was  there  no  one 
who  could  have  cautioned  him  against  the 
finesse  of  Clemenceau  who  spent  sixty  years 
sharpening  his  wits  on  the  political  grind- 
stone of  Europe?  Was  no  one  in  America 
aware  that  the  French  Premier  is  a  fluent 
speaker  in  English? 

Mr.  Wilson  could  speak  no  French,  which 
reminds  me  that  Jack  Spratt  could  eat  no  fat 
and  his  wife  could  eat  no  lean,  and  so  betwixt 
them  both  they  licked  the  platter  clean.  But 
a  clean  plate  does  not  mean  a  clean  slate,  and 
the  President  brought  one  home  filled  with 
the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx.  Yet  the  Peace  Con- 
ference revealed  the  secret  of  perpetual  mo- 
tion and  conferred  a  timely  service,  for  the 
hubbub  created  by  the  Wilson-Lansing- 
House-Party  at  Versailles  kept  the  Senate 
from  passing  into  a  trance. 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       23 

A  blind  man  can  tell  the  difference  between 
pepper  pods  and  apple  dumplings,  but  who 
can  tell  where  tweedle-dee  ends  and  tweedle- 
dum begins?  No  one.  Then  how  can  your 
statesmen  distinguish  between  the  psycho- 
logical characteristics  of  the  Hungarians  and 
the  Bohemians,  the  Bavarians  and  the  Sax- 
ons, the  difference  between  a  polka  and  a 
polonaise,  a  pig  in  a  stye  and  a  pig  in  a 
slaughter  house? 

Patriotism  often  depends  on  an  influence 
too  subtle  for  analysis,  and  yet  they  would 
enact  drastic  laws  to  bind  all  Europe  in  one 
bond.  They  will  hardly  succeed  in  a  thousand 
years. 

Some  pay  through  the  nose,  some  through 
the  pocket  and  some  through  the  stomach. 
Americans  are  paying  through  all  three. 
Danton  declared  the  secret  of  the  French 
Revolution  was  audacity,  and  audacity,  and 
again  audacity,  but  what  you  need  today  is 
vigilance  repeated  ad  infinitum. 

I  am  placing  you  in  communication  with 
some  of  the  most  far-reaching  minds  of  the 
past  hundred  and  fifty  years.  The  psycho- 
phone  is  new  and  we  are  using  it  for  the  first 
time. 


THE  LATE  GENERAL  U.  S.  GRANT 
Recorded  September  Ninth,  1920 

The  imbroglio  started  by  President  Car- 
ranza  is  beginning  to  influence  the  politicians 
of  Buenos  Ayres  and  other  centers  in  South 
America.  They  have  secretly  repudiated 
the  Monroe  Doctrine.  Their  next  maneuver 
will  be  a  public  repudiation. 

I  would  say  to  Congress,  stop  juggling  with 
phrases  and  attend  to  the  business  of  the 
hour.  The  majority  have  been  chasing  shad- 
ows in  a  sphere  of  politics  illumined  by  moon- 
shine bottled  in  the  Blue  Ridge.  I  was  more 
careful  of  my  brand.  When  President  Lin- 
coln asked  for  the  label,  so  he  could  recom- 
mend it  to  other  generals,  he  was  not  far 
wrong  in  his  surmises.  It  is  not  so  much  the 
thing  as  the  quality  that  counts.  Most  of  you 
at  Washington  will  have  to  learn  the  differ- 
ence between  inhibition  and  prohibition. 

The  United  States  will  be  isolated  within 
three  years  from  this  date  if  the  blowhards 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       25 

from  the  woolly  constituencies  are  not  sup- 
pressed. You  need  a  broncho  buster  in  the 
Senate  and  a  donkey  muzzier  in  the  House. 

When  a  boycott  is  started  by  the  countries 
south  of  the  Union  your  enemies  in  Europe 
will  begin  to  act.  It  is  not  a  question  of  com- 
merce but  of  common  sense.  I  repeat  what 
Lincoln  said  in  1862:  "The  times  are  dark 
and  the  spirits  of  ruin  are  abroad  in  all  their 
power." 

My  message  to  Congress  is :  See  that  fifty 
thousand  troops  are  stationed  permanently 
near  the  District  of  Columbia. 

My  message  to  the  Governors  of  New  York, 
Pennsylvania  and  Illinois  is:  Get  ready!  The 
troops  on  the  borders  of  Texas,  New  Mexico 
and  Arizona  are  inadequate.  The  fortifica- 
tions of  the  Panama  and  at  San  Diego  and 
San  Pedro  are  inadequate.  You  are  in  the 
same  condition  the  French  were  in  previous  to 
1789,  when  the  motto  was,  "After  us  the 
Deluge."  The  Deluge  came  but  it  did  not  con- 
sist of  water. 

Our  foes  of  the  old  Germany  and  the  new 
Russia  count  on  crippling  the  United  States 
through  South  America,  with  the  aid  of 


26       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

Japan ;  but  he  who  delivers  the  first  blow  will 
be  the  victor. 

The  Germans  still  believe  they  can  event- 
ually invade  France,  enter  Paris  and  cause 
a  revolution,  found  a  new  empire  to  include 
France,  Belgium,  Holland  and  Switzerland, 
with  Italy  later  on.  This  dream  includes  a 
practical  understanding  with  Soviet  Russia, 
which,  by  that  time,  they  expect  would  be 
weary  of  futile  experiments.  Plots  will  be  ex- 
posed that  will  make  it  apparent  how  vain 
some  of  your  optimistic  surmises  have  been. 
Diplomats  who  are  not  psychologists  will  be 
balked  by  developments  in  Switzerland,  that 
nation  having  become  the  rendezvous  of  dis- 
illusioned wire-pullers  without  a  country. 

You  are  now  at  the  cross  roads,  Take  the 
wrong  turning  and  you  will  come  to  the  skull 
and  cross  bones. 

I  could  say  much  more  but  we  are  not  yet 
experts  in  this  new  mode  of  inter-communi- 
cation and  must  be  brief. 


GENERAL  U.  S.  GRANT. 

(Second  Message) 
Recorded  May  Third,  1921 

I  concur  with  Alexander  Stephens  when  he 
says:  "Congress  has  never  been  so  supine 
and  so  serpentine." 

Millions  are  sent  to  the  people  of  distant 
countries  in  no  way  related  to  our  Govern- 
ment or  people,  and  yet  Congress  permits 
thousands  of  veterans  of  the  great  war  to 
continue  in  a  state  of  neglect,  suffering  and 
humiliation. 

Do  the  authorities  believe  that  when  the 
day  of  trial  arrives  the  friends  and  relatives 
of  these  veterans  will  hurry  to  volunteer  for 
active  service?  The  country  is  being  fasci- 
nated by  incidents  and  events  in  far-off  re- 
gions, and  the  tragic  conditions  at  home  have 
entered  a  chronic  stage. 

There  are  too  many  old  men  in  Congress — 
men  who  never  did  more  than  fight  grasshop- 
pers or  watch  a  game  of  football  from  re- 
served seats. 


28       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

We  do  not  like  the  looks  of  the  President's 
pronunciamento.  It  contains  too  many  side 
issues.  He  is  making  Mr.  Wilson's  mistake 
of  being  verbose.  Mr.  Wilson  tried  to  hypno- 
tize Europe;  the  Senate  is  trying  to  hypno- 
tize Mr.  Harding.  Popularity  breeds  as  much 
contempt  as  familiarity.  No  President  can 
ever  succeed  in  conciliatng  all  classes,  sec- 
tions and  parties. 

The  politicians  of  Buenos  Ayres  have  now 
spoken  as  I  predicted  in  my  first  message. 
They  have  attacked  Mr.  Harding  for  his 
speech  on  Pan-Americanism,  all  which  goes 
to  prove  that  the  President  is  repeating  for 
South  America  Mr.  Wilson's  blunders  in 
France. 

Remember  what  Lincoln  said  to  Judge 
Whitney:— 

"Those  fellows  think  I  don't  see  anything, 
but  I  see  all  around  them.  I  see  better  what 
they  want  to  do  with  me  than  they  do  them- 
selves." 

The  politicians  of  South  America  see  bet- 
ter what  the  President  wants  to  do  with 
them  than  he  does  himself. 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       29 

The  administration  will  face  a  critical  pe- 
riod in  the  early  fall.  There  will  be  a  break 
in  the  dominant  phalanx.  A  social  and  poli- 
tical readjustment  will  compel  mediation  in 
quarters  the  most  unexpected. 

The  new  political  and  commercial  dispensa- 
tion for  the  English-speaking  countries  will 
begin  on  September  twenty-second  at  two 
P.M. 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON 

Few  politicians  understand  the  difference 
between  scene-shifting  and  progress.  Things 
shift,  new  names  are  applied,  but  the  vicious 
circle  continues. 

I  see  no  evidence  that  human  nature  has 
changed  since  my  time,  in  this  or  any  other 
country. 

If  the  Republican  Ship  of  State  is  leaking, 
the  Democratic  craft  is  drifting  without  sail 
or  rudder.  What  your  statesmen  fail  to  un- 
derstand is  that  progress  is  not  induced  by 
force  but  by  free  will.  New  political  planks 
rammed  into  your  platforms  against  the 
wishes  of  the  majority  are  without  signifi- 
cance. The  phrase,  "The  Solid  South,"  which 
meant  something  vital  at  one  time,  has  no 
meaning  in  these  days  of  quick  change  and 
movie-show  influences. 

Democracy,  in  some  sections,  is  a  matter 
of  climate.  If  you  have  come  to  a  point  where 
science  and  sentimentality  are  engaged  in  a 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       31 

drastic  war,  then  the  Democratic  phalanx 
must  undergo  some  rude  changes. 

The  Democratic  tail  wagged  the  Republi- 
can dog  for  some  time,  but  that  curious  spec- 
tacle has  lost  its  hold  on  public  interest.  It  is 
not  now  a  question  of  one  end  wagging  the 
other,  but  who  will  wag  both.  If  Republicans 
stand  for  crude  force,  and  Democrats  for  an- 
te-bellum sentimentality,  both  are  doomed  to- 
gether. • 

In  the  South,  Democracy  means  politics  at 
the  polls,  aristocracy  in  the  parlor.  In  the 
North,  Republicanism  means  the  aristocracy 
of  wealth. 

However,  your  conception  of  social  equal- 
ity is  undergoing  modification. 

In  Washington's  time  the  slogan  was  revo- 
lution; in  Lincoln's  time  it  was  abolition;  in 
your  time  it  is  prohibition,  which  reminds  me 
that  laws  passed  in  haste  bring  long  periods 
of  repentance. 

Effective  effrontery  is  the  result  of  cour- 
ageous ignorance,  for  millions  are  more  easily 
influenced  by  illusive  promises  than  by  the 
lessons  of  experience. 


32        PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

Modern  civilization  has  hurried  to  meet 
four  deadly  things — riches,  pleasures,  mate- 
rialism and  war.  But  the  tortoise  is  a  better 
example  of  progress  than  the  hare  fleeing  be- 
fore the  greyhound. 


ELIZABETH  CADY  STANTON 

It  appalls  the  normal  mind  to  stop  and  con- 
sider the  criminal  blunders  made  by  the  edu- 
cated Prussian  and  the  educated  Englishman 
prior  to  1914.  No  statesman  had  the  vision 
to  see  what  was  going  to  happen  to  the  man- 
made  world. 

Since  it  is  a  question  of  intuition  and  feel- 
ing versus  cold  reason  and  business  logic,  let 
us  see  which  side  is  the  more  vital  and  all-en- 
during. Let  us  consider  for  a  brief  space 
what  it  is  that  influences  people.  Let  us  con- 
sider the  influence  exerted  by  the  arts.  What 
is  music?  Emotion  created  by  sound  vibra- 
tions. What  is  dramatic  acting?  Emotion 
created  by  vocal  vibrations  combined  with 
gesture  and  physical  movement.  Has  anyone 
ever  witnessed  automatic  acting  that  left  a 
profound  impression? 

Orators  become  famous  when  they  unite 
deep  feeling  with  knowledge.  But  what  gives 
expression?  The  power  of  awakening  emotion 


34       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

in  others.  Feeling  is  always  more  convincing 
than  intellect.  Intellect  is  full  of  theories, 
notions  and  superstitions.  But  where  you  find 
deep  feeling  combined  with  knowledge,  you 
will  find  reason  directed  by  qualities  which 
pass  through  the  surface  and  attain  the 
heart-throbs  of  the  real. 

There  are  many  kinds  of  emotion.  There 
is  the  hard  emotion  of  anger,  the  confused 
emotion  of  fear,  the  painful  emotion  of  jeal- 
ousy, the  indescribable  emotion  of  despair, 
the  radiant  emotion  of  joy.  But  the  greatest 
emotion  of  all  is  that  of  knowledge  united  to 
feeling. 

Men,  as  a  rule,  speak  of  emotion  as  a  weak- 
ness, and  they  confuse  it  with  impulse — a 
very  different  thing.  Impulse  is  often  the  re- 
sult of  weak  nerves,  uncontrolled  by  the  will; 
but  we  must  not  confuse  it  with  the  emotional 
quality  which  underlies  all  great  achieve- 
ment in  art,  literature,  philosophy  and  per- 
sonality. The  more  impulsive  the  individual 
is,  the  more  primitive  the  reasoning  faculty. 

English  and  American  business  men  are 
limited  in  general  knowledge.  I  have  never 
been  able  to  discover  any  distinctive  differ- 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       35 

ence  between  the  two.  In  France  and  Italy 
many  business  men  are  able  to  discuss  art, 
literature  and  music  on  the  same  level  with 
the  masters.  The  Latin  races  and  the  Celtic 
races  possess  a  culture  that  can  be  traced 
back  for  two  or  three  thousand  years,  but 
Anglo-Saxon  culture  only  to  the  time  of  the 
Saxon  invasion.  The  Anglo-Saxons  were  the 
mushrooms  of  our  civilization.  They  were  a 
stolid  business  people  who  lacked  creative 
genius. 

The  outstanding  intellect  of  England  today 
is  Celtic.  The  Scotch,  the  Irish  and  the  Welsh 
combine  emotion  and  power  with  tenacity  of 
purpose,  and  it  is  this  Celtic  element  that 
keeps  America  in  the  front  rank  of  nations. 

What  women  have  been  opposing  is  the 
primitive  monotony  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
trend.  It  has  meant  a  mixture  of  politics  and 
commerce  so  primitive  and  so  naive  that 
Frenchmen  are  amazed  when  they  visit 
America  and  note  the  striking  difference  be- 
tween the  culture  of  the  women  and  the  men- 
tality of  the  average  man. 

One  of  your  great  mystics  has  said:  "The 
chemical  constituents  of  human  bodies  is  the 
same.  The  ashes  of  a  saint  and  the  ashes  of 


36       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

a  sinner  give  the  same  chemical  results.  As 
human  bodies  they  are  the  same,  but  their 
functions  separate  them  and  make  them  to- 
tally different,  so  that  the  difference  cannot 
by  any  hocus-pocus  of  metaphysics  or  magic 
be  bridged  or  spanned." 

Two  things  of  the  same  material  are  really 
different  if  their  functions  are  different.  The 
real  substance  of  a  thing  is  in  its  function. 
We  have  to.  judge  people  by  the  things  they 
do,  not  by  their  appearance;  for  there  is  no 
clear  understanding  between  two  persons 
whose  aims  are  different.  This  is  why  there 
are  so  many  divorces.  This  is  why  so  many 
intellectual  women  live  separate  lives  from 
their  husbands  in  the  same  house. 

People  seem  to  be  similar  and  equal  but 
they  differ  according  to  their  functions.  If  we 
take  a  philosopher,  a  hangman  and  a  sailor 
who  appear  to  be  equal  as  human  beings  we 
shall  see  that  in  their  functions  there  is 
nothing  in  common.  The  souls  of  these  men 
are  different  in  the  very  nature,  origin  and 
purpose  of  their  existence. 

Thousands  of  people  move  in  a  world  of  ma- 
terial shadows  while  their  souls,  the  sub- 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       37 

stance  of  which  is  intellectual  and  spiritual, 
inhabit  a  sphere  absolutely  apart.  Especially 
is  this  the  case  with  many  of  the  cultured 
women  of  our  time  who  are  compelled  to  live 
a  double  life.  Their  intellects  are  far  removed 
from  the  ordinary  pursuits  of  the  commercial 
world. 

A  woman  of  spiritual  culture  who  marries 
a  commercial  man  has  married  a  shadow.  A 
woman  of  high  ideals  who  marries  a  profes- 
sional politician  has  hitched  her  motor  car  to 
a  meteor.  A  romantic  woman  married  to  a 
multi-millionaire  whose  world  is  bound  in 
liberty  bonds  loses  her  liberty.  A  metaphysi- 
cal woman  who  marries  a  financier  is  handi- 
capped by  the  physical. 

A  union  of  spiritual  functions  with  mate- 
rial formulas  is  impossible,  for  there  is  no 
way  in  which  mere  sensation  can  be  made  to 
harmonize  with  the  higher  emotions. 

The  new  era  of  woman,  which  is  just  be- 
ginning to  dawn,  will  direct  education;  and 
through  education,  politics;  through  politics, 
the  progress  of  nations.  Heretofore,  the  com- 
mercial and  political  world  had  a  free  hand. 
The  progressive  element  was  confined  to  a 


38       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

limited  number  of  men  in  the  colleges  and  the 
ministry,  together  with  a  remnant  of  law- 
makers. But  their  influence  was  negative 
owing  to  lack  of  material  support. 

Women  will  now  present  a  formidable  force 
in  numbers,  backed  by  a  spiritual  power,  aid- 
ed by  men  who  understand  the  difference 
between  functions  and  appearance,  sensuous 
desires  and  ideal  emotions. 

For  years  I  maintained  that  women  do  not 
realize  the  power  they  possess.  They  live  so 
much  in  a  world  of  their  own  that  they  do  not 
regard  the  man-made  commercial  world  as 
worth  elevating. 

Thousands  of  men  are  living  in  a  sphere 
some  degrees  below  the  normal.  They  have 
been  surrounded  from  the  beginning  with  in- 
fluences that  obliterate  all  the  higher  facul- 
ties of  the  mind. 

It  has  taken  woman  some  centuries  to  rise 
to  power,  but  the  work  is  only  half  done. 
Never  can  the  commercial  instinct  and  the  in- 
tellectual ideal  be  made  to  harmonize.  The 
two  spheres  of  consciousness  are  totally  dis- 
tinct. 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       39 

The  modern  intellect  has  been  organized 
without  considering  the  moral  meaning  of  its 
activity.  This  has  caused  the  delusion  that 
the  crowning  glory  of  European  culture  is  the 
dreadnaught.  Ninety  per  cent  of  all  modern 
inventions  are  for  bodily  destruction  or  bodily 
comfort.  While  the  body  lolls  in  luxury,  the 
spirit  is  soused  in  lethargy. 

As  Ouspensky  says,  we  have  created  two 
lives — one  material,  the  other  spiritual.  I  be- 
lieve this  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  man  is  liv- 
ing and  working  in  the  material  and  woman 
in  the  spiritual.  In  other  words,  she  is  carry- 
ing her  own  responsibilities  on  one  shoulder 
and  man's  baneful  burdens  on  the  other.  The 
figure  of  Atlas  holding  up  the  Globe  should 
be  changed  to  that  of  a  female. 

One  would  think  that  in  these  days,  when 
psychology  is  taught  even  to  children,  that  a 
man  who  has  lived  forty  years  in  the  world  of 
action  would  know  better  than  to  boast  of  his 
eternal  activities.  The  word  "busy"  has 
grown  to  be  a  veritable  fetish  with  thousands 
who  have  little  or  nothing  to  do.  The  truth  is, 
most  men  are  not  half  as  busy  as  they  seem 
and  not  more  than  a  fourth  as  wise  as  they 
look. 


40       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

We  have  to  find  out  by  exact  analysis  just 
what  incentive  lies  behind  people's  actions. 
What  makes  the  distinction  is  the  quality  of 
our  acts.  Everything  in  the  material  and  the 
spiritual  worlds  is  judged  according  to  qual- 
ity. Gold,  diamonds,  clothes,  bricks,  music, 
poetry*  literature,  are  adjudged,  in  the  last 
resort,  on  the  basis  of  intrinsic  value.  When 
people  are  engaged  in  pursuits  for  the  sake 
of  money  the  results  will  be  on  a  plane  with 
the  quality  of  the  incentive. 

In  the  work  done  by  women  in  the  past  fifty 
years  in  this  country,  the  incentive  has  been 
of  a  higher  quality  than  that  shown  by  men. 

While  men  introduced  a  coarse  realism  into 
the  novel,  women  saved  the  situation  by  new 
ideals.  I  do  not  think  there  would  be  much 
left  worth  reading  today  but  for  woman's 
taste  and  judgment. 

In  the  world  of  intellect  and  emotion  things 
hang  together.  A  low  plane  of  intellect  will 
produce  low  impulses.  The  more  we  know  the 
greater  our  control  of  the  different  sense  or- 
gans. Nothing  can  happen  without  a  corres- 
ponding cause  behind  it. 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       41 

The  hysteria  so  common  at  great  political 
conventions  is  caused  by  the  exceedingly 
limited  intelligence  of  the  managers  and  di- 
rectors who  labor  under  the  illusion  that  blind 
impulse  is  tantamount  to  vision.  In  other 
words,  where  the  critical  faculties  are  not  de- 
veloped anything  can  happen.  And  it  is  not 
difficult  to  predict  that  when  political  conven- 
tions are  swayed  by  hysterical  temperaments 
the  authority  at  the  White  House  will  have 
all  he  can  do  to  steer  the  Ship  of  State 
through  the  troubled  waters  of  impulse  and 
confusion. 

There  is  a  will  to  power  that  is  blind.  There 
is  another  will  to  power  that  brings  the  high- 
er emotions  to  bear  on  the  lower  impulses, 
controls  and  directs  the  organs  of  sense. 

The  people  who  elect  a  President  are  the 
ones  who  will  influence  his  actions.  And  when 
we  talk  about  a  President  being  a  good  man 
for  business  we  are  compelled  to  seek  for  the 
reason  behind  the  statement. 

If  finance  lands  a  President  at  the  White 
House,  women,  children,  teachers  and  phil- 
osophers must  shift  for  themselves,  since  the 
supreme  test  lies  in  function,  and  not  in  man- 


42       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

ners,  words  and  looks.   And   finance   means 
finesse. 

Do  not  expect  great  innovations  at  the  Capi- 
tol until  a  strong  woman  takes  her  seat  at 
the  White  House;  and  by  this  I  do  not  mean 
one  of  Barnum's  bearded  ladies. 

Conservatism  is  a  good  thing  when  it  is 
coupled  with  vision  and  judgment,  but  bear 
in  mind  that  monotony  and  mediocrity  start 
in  the  same  groove,  run  at  the  same  pace  and 
arrive  at  the  same  grave. 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

There  is  but  one  mark  of  patriotism  and 
that  is  vigilance  and  enthusiasm.  The  cause 
of  your  trouble  is  the  sincerity  with  which 
your  foes  think  and  act  and  the  lukewarm 
sentiment  shown  by  Americans.  The  reason 
is  to  be  found  in  the  comfort  and  luxury  of 
the  present  day  compared  with  the  pioneer 
sacrifices  of  your  fathers  and  grandfathers. 
Your  opponents  are  vindictive  as  well  as  vigi- 
lant. They  mean  what  they  say  and  do  what 
they  will.  They  are  working  as  individuals, 
as  well  as  in  groups  and  parties,  but  Ameri- 
cans who  inherited  the  land  with  liberty  are 
exchanging  both  for  the  license  of  the  maw. 

When  school  teachers  and  farm  hands  are 
permitted  to  leave  the  country  for  the  city, 
the  end  is  not  so  far  off  as  your  sophisticated 
solons  of  the  State  Capitols  would  lead  you 
to  suppose. 

I  once  stated  that  three  movings  equal  one 
fire,  and  I  can  say  now  that  the  lack  of  teach- 
ers and  farm  hands  has  resulted  in  a  damage 


44       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

equal  to  one  revolution.  No  calamity  comes 
and  goes  single  handed.  The  world,  the  flesh 
and  the  devil  are  a  triumvirate  bound  to- 
gether by  ties  of  consanguinity.  Your  school 
teachers  are  passing  over  to  the  world,  your 
farm  laborers  to  the  flesh,  and  your  ministers 
to  the  devil. 

You  are  browsing  on  the  stubble.  One  de- 
linquency involves  another,  and  eventually 
the  monetary  capital  of  the  nation  may  be 
reduced  to  that  of  France.  The  nation  will 
awake  one  day  to  the  disillusioning  fact  that 
peace  and  progress  cannot  be  gauged  by  com- 
mercial prosperity  alone.  For  without  food 
what  avails  your  steel,  your  oil  and  your 
gold? 

If  you  could  witness  the  mortification  poor 
Andrew  Carnegie  is  now  undergoing  because 
of  his  lack  of  vision,  you  would  have  a  lesson 
not  soon  forgotten.  He  built  libraries  but  fur- 
nished no  books  to  fill  them.  It  was  like  build- 
ing houses  without  windows.  When  leading 
business  men  commit  such  folly  what  can 
you  expect  of  the  nation  at  large? 

The  three  things  most  needed  by  the  peo- 
ple are  food,  raiment  and  shelter.  The  next 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       45 

three  are  instruction,  religion  and  discipline. 
Liberty  is  a  privilege;  it  comes  after  all  the 
others.  The  individual  has  no  rights  inimical 
to  those  of  the  collective  conscience. 

Until  you  learn  this  fundamental  maxim, 
all  your  knowledge  will  prove  but  a  sounding 
brass  and  a  tinkling  cymbal. 

The  nations  are  rattling  over  the  cobble 
stones  of  bankruptcy  on  a  buckboard  of  com- 
promise, on  the  high  road  to  revolution. 


JOHN  MARSHALL 

(The  Expounder  of  the  Constitution) 

Recorded  October,  1920 

Some  recent  decisions  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  are,  more  than 
any  other  factor,  calculated  to  develop  and 
foster  an  element  of  national  unrest.  Its  de- 
liberations are  beyond  the  intelligence  of 
many  and  above  the  interests  of  the  major- 
ity. Its  psychology  is  that  of  a  divorce  be- 
tween capital  and  labor.  Its  rulings  remind 
me  of  what  transpired  in  England  early  in 
the  nineteenth  century. 

Many  who  were  not  socialists  are  beginning 
to  turn  from  the  older  order,  imbued  with 
the  feeling  that  nothing  could  happen  in  the 
future  worse  for  the  country  at  large  than 
the  conditions  that  are  being  endured  in  the 
present. 

A  revolution  arrives  after  a  series  of  con- 
nected events  which  exhausts  the  patience 
of  the  public,  and  events  are  moving  with  in- 
tensity as  well  as  rapidity. 


DANIEL  WEBSTER 

You  will  search  the  pages  of  history  in  vain 
without  finding  a  parallel  to  present  condi- 
tions. 

The  war  gave  Bohemia  her  freedom ;  at  the 
same  time  it  licensed  a  bohemian  poet  to 
keep  Italy  stewing  in  her  own  juice,  a  bohe- 
mian journalist  from  New  York  to  direct  af- 
fairs in  Moscow,  and  a  bohemian  socialist 
from  Switzerland  to  rule  over  Russia. 

Added  to  this  a  fashionable  ladies'  pianist 
has  tried  his  hand,  or  should  I  say  fingers, 
in  the  science  of  unfurling  the  sails  of  Po- 
land's new  Ship  of  State,  while  shop-keepers 
direct  affairs  in  Germany  and  pusilanimous 
politicians  keep  the  people  of  America  in  a 
state  of  tepid  trepidation  and  flatulent  tur- 
moil. Can  you  wonder  that  the  country  is  be- 
ing hypnotized  by  the  sight  of  so  many  can- 
tankerous cataleptics? 

Macbeth  declared  he  had  waded  in  so  far 
that  returning  would  be  as  perilous  as  going 


48       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

on.  Nothing  will  move  them  until  they  are 
swamped  by  the  high  tide  of  reaction  and 
flung  as  flotsam  on  the  rocks  of  a  stormy  op- 
portunism. 

A  new  Damocles  has  a  sword  suspended 
over  the  National  Capitol,  and  liberty  hangs 
to  the  hinges  of  the  Constitution  by  a  hair. 


OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 

While  a  few  people  are  ready  to  return  to 
first  principles,  many  are  giving  expressions 
to  Garden  of  Eden  proclivities.  But  instead 
of  the  old  Eve,  you  have  the  new  Amazon; 
instead  of  the  old  serpent,  copperheads  in 
Congress;  instead  of  the  old  Adam,  fresh 
brands  of  bluebeards. 

Agreeable  to  the  apple  of  the  new  Adam's 
eye  and  the  fruitarian  diet  of  the  new  Eden, 
some  ladies  have  adopted  the  fig-leaf  stand- 
ard. But  let  that  pass  for  the  moment,  al- 
ways bearing  in  mind  that  he  who  loses  his 
sense  of  humor  loses  his  equilibrium. 

Millions  of  people  are  dancing  their  legs 
off  to  keep  their  heads  on. 

Providence  is  wiser  than  the  moralists. 

There  was  a  way  out  of  the  trenches  and 
there  is  a  way  out  of  the  pessimism  develop- 
ed by  the  dying  dispensation.  It  is  not  so 
much  a  question  of  keeping  your  powder  dry 
as  it  is  of  keeping  your  wits  from  congealing. 


50       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

Beware  of  nebulous  notions  and  theories. 
Uncanny  kinks  lead  to  calamitous  brain 
storms.  A  stitch  in  the  side  saves  nine — kicks 
behind  the  solar  plexus. 


BENJAMIN  WADE 
(Late  Governor  of  Ohio— U.  S.  Senator) 

Viewed  in  the  light  that  shines  on  the 
White  House,  there  is  no  difference  between 
a  man  from  Ohio  and  a  gentleman  from  In- 
diana. 

Men  from  the  pumpkin  pie  districts  think 
and  feel  alike,  judging  world  politics  by  the 
yard-stick  method  that  prevailed  in  their  vil- 
lages when  they  were  young  men.  They  are 
not  always  aware  that  political  ruts  cause  so- 
cial ructions. 

The  all-wool-and-a-yard-wide  politician  was 
home-spun  and  honestly  patriotic,  but  what 
you  need  is  a  home-spun  thinker  whose  vision 
has  got  beyond  the  yard-stick  measure  and 
can  take  in  the  whole  world. 

An  old-school  president,  at  this  juncture, 
will  have  little  more  authority  than  a  Congo 
king  would  have  at  a  conference  of  jurists  in 
Paris. 


52       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

Has  anyone  taken  the  trouble  to  find  out 
just  what  distinguishes  the  minority  from 
the  majority? 

While  the  home-spun  politician  was  eating 
cookies  and  buckwheat  cakes  made  by  his 
mother  in  the  Middle  West,  some  millions  in 
New  York,  Chicago,  Cleveland,  and  other  for- 
eign centers,  were  partaking  of  Wienerwurst, 
sauerkraut,  Swiss  cheese  and  rye  bread,  and 
clinking  beer  glasses,  according  to  the  cus- 
tom of  Continental  Europe. 

If  we  say  that  a  statesman  represents 
Americanism,  the  question  arises  what  kind 
of  Americanism?  The  Yankee,  the  Southern- 
er, each  had  his  place  in  the  political  econ- 
omy of  America  from  1776  to  the  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation  in  1863,  and  even  up  to  the 
Cleveland  Administration,  after  which  con- 
ditions began  to  change  with  startling  rap- 
idity, when  the  children  born  of  foreign  pa- 
rents were  beginning  to  come  of  age  and  the 
European  ferment  began  to  leaven  the  lumps 
of  sectional  dough. 

The  man  who  occupies  the  White  House  in 
1921  should  take  Time  by  the  forelock  and 
the  profiteer  with  the  padlock,  know  how  to 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       53 

translate  "Es  ist  verboten"  into  Russian,  and 
say,  "Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan,"  in  Es- 
peranto. 

If  honesty  ,  alone,  is  the  best  and  only  pol- 
icy, our  country  would  be  safe,  but  honesty 
is  only  one  of  the  qualities  necessary  in  these 
days  to  carry  a  President  through  the  mazes 
of  a  complex  administration.  Honesty  does 
not  always  imply  clear  vision  or  even  ordi- 
nary common  sense.  The  faculties  of  diplo- 
matic tact  and  political  judgment  are  infinite- 
ly more  important,  and  experience  still  more 
so. 

In  America  the  roles  enacted  by  profes- 
sional politicians  remind  one  of  a  masquerade 
where  everyone  is  trying  to  penetrate  be- 
hind the  masks  and  guessing  is  the  rule.  If 
in  this  heterogeneous  ball-room  you  slap  your 
partner  on  the  back,  you  may  elicit  a  grunt 
from  a  grouchy  bolshevik  or  a  groan  from  a 
disgruntled  "bohemian." 

And  yet  Congress  enacts  laws  for  Ameri- 
cans who  understand  no  dialect  but  their  own 
and  who  have  to  engage  interpreters  when 
they  visit  Paris.  How  many  wealthy  Ameri- 
cans realize  that  these  United  States  have 


54       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

outgrown  the  cookie  era,  the  buckwheat  pan- 
cake era,  the  corn  cob  era,  the  wooden  nut- 
meg era,  and  arrived  at  the  root-hog-or-die 
era? 

Young  America  today  no  more  resembles 
the  young  America  of  thirty  years  ago  than 
a  butterfly  resembles  a  caterpillar.  Young 
men  and  women  are  sixty  per  cent  cosmopoli- 
tan and  forty  per  cent  rebel. 

During  the  next  five  years  the  number  of 
young  people  who  will  insist  on  thinking  for 
themselves  will  increase  two-fold,  because  in 
that  time  many  thousands  of  children  born 
of  foreign  parents  in  America  will  have  be- 
come mature  enough  to  have  fixed  upon  some 
sort  of  ideal. 

Congress  will  realize  the  situation  when  it 
is  too  late  for  regrets  to  be  of  any  service. 
Which  calls  to  mind  a  story  apropos  of 
this  pressing  subject:  A  landlady,  having  no 
means  of  obtaining  meat  for  her  boarders, 
made  a  stew  out  of  a  litter  of  kittens.  The 
truth  became  known  in  a  day  or  two.  One  of 
the  boarders  said  the  very  thought  made  her 
sick,  to  which  the  landlady  replied:  "Feeling 
sick  won't  do  no  good;  them  kittens  has  all 
been  digested." 


DON  PIATT 

(Late  Editor  of   "The   Capital,"   Washing- 
ton, D.  C.) 

Where  are  the  debaters  whose  rapier 
tongues  ripped  up  the  rag  dolls  of  Congress 
and  kept  the  floor  of  the  House  supplied  with 
fresh  saw-dust,  whose  fantastic  fencing  and 
heart-piercing  thrusts  were  the  delight  of 
the  gallery  and  the  terror  of  fire  eaters.  Gone, 
gone  where  the  woodbine  twineth.  What 
went  they  out  for  to  see?  A  reed  shaken  by 
the  wind?  There  is  a  difference  in  reeds. 
Tom  Reed  of  Maine  shook  the  House,  but  the 
House  never  shook  him.  What  were  his  fa- 
vorite drinks?  There  was  plenty  to  choose 
from  in  the  Washington  of  his  day.  But  note 
the  difference  between  the  wit  of  the  Maine 
Reed  and  that  of  the  Missouri  Reed. 

On  the  other  hand,  where  did  Bryan  get 
the  "cross  of  gold"  inspiration  in  the  old 
days?  Did  he  do  it  on  tannic  acid  released 


56       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

from  tea  leaves?  Who  will  ever  know?  One 
thing  is  certain — he  never  again  rose  to  the 
same  level. 

Is  our  planet  revolving  toward  a  second  edi- 
tion of  puritanism?  Probably.  The  esprit  de 
corps  that  animated  the  body  politic  begins 
to  resemble  a  corpse  with  the  esprit  evapor- 
ated. 

The  human  mind  needs  moments  of  exalta- 
tion as  well  as  relaxation.  Brilliant  results 
are  not  produced  by  lukewarm  sentiments 
expressed  in  a  voice  that  lacks  enthusiasm. 

Washington  is  now  a  resort  for  celluloid 
cynics  and  a  refuge  for  asbestos  patriots 
whose  marmorian  snobbery  makes  me  think 
of  the  ruins  of  temples  abandoned  by  the 
gods  and  forgotten  by  man. 

The  great  blunder  of  the  prohibitionists 
was  made  when  they  condemned  beer  and 
light  wine.  Nature  abhors  abruptness.  Pro- 
gress is  not  made  by  sudden  jerks  and  vio- 
lent laws  passed  in  a  hurry. 

If  a  few  persons  living  in  an  obscure  vil- 
lage in  Ohio  can  bring  about  a  movement  like 
prohibition,  the  same  influence  can  bring 
about  a  return  of  the  old  Connecticut  blue 
laws. 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       57 

Violent  actions  are  followed  by  violent  re- 
actions. From  this  there  is  no  escape. 

The  fundamental  objection  to  prohibition, 
as  it  stands,  lies  in  the  cold  fact  that  provin- 
cialism, no  matter  how  sincere,  can  never 
compete  with  international  common  sense 
and  cosmopolitan  culture. 

Village  residents  are  ignorant  of  the  laws 
that  govern  society  in  the  most  intelligent 
centers  of  the  world.  What  will  be  the  result 
in  the  long  run?  Antagonism  between  the 
people  of  the  cities  and  the  people  of  the 
country. 

When  they  prohibit  tobacco,  a  war  of  cuss 
words  will  be  followed  by  a  battle  of  cuspi- 
dors, and  the  very  crows  will  cuss  the  cro- 
cuses. 


BENJAMIN  DISRAELI 

Some  Members  of  Parliament  have  lost 
their  reason,  the  majority  have  lost  their 
wits,  all  are  without  vision. 

Lloyd  George  presents  the  curious  specta- 
cle of  a  man  of  the  people  who  observes  them 
through  the  glasses  of  a  Welsh  Calvinist.  He 
is  a  democrat  with  the  demeanor  of  a  lord, 
a  radical  who  has  fallen  between  the  two 
stools  of  the  middle-class  and  the  landed  aris- 
tocracy. Nonconformist  sentimentality,  on 
one  hand,  and  titled  wealth  on  the  other,  have 
blinded  him  to  the  imperative  needs  of  the 
time  and  the  dangers  that  confront  the  Em- 
pire. 

The  English  people  of  the  past  twenty 
years  have  suffered  as  much  from  misgov- 
ernment  as  the  Germans  and  the  Russians, 
but  they  cannot  stop  the  present  stream  of 
progress  by  clatter  in  the  House  and  appeals 
to  patriotism. 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       59 

For  years  England  has  been  saddled  with 
cabinets  composed  of  professional  humorists 
and  hum-drum  moralists. 

Augustine  Birrell  was  a  diluted  edition  of 
Sydney  Smith,  and  Bonar  Law  should  have 
been  a  professor  of  theology  in  a  Presbyterian 
seminary.  Sir  Edward  Carson  played  the 
role  of  an  unfrocked  priest  in  the  service  of 
demiurgos.  Earl  Curzon  is  a  political  dere- 
lict whose  presence  in  the  Council  Chamber 
prevents  unity  and  impedes  progress. 

History  will  record  their  acts  as  the  most 
amazing  in  the  annals  of  Great  Britain.  I  see 
nothing  for  the  old  order  but  unconditional 
surrender.  The  hand-writing  on  the  wall  was 
visible  in  1909,  but  no  preparation  was  made 
for  the  change  which  is  now  sweeping  the 
country  with  cyclonic  force. 

We,  from  our  side,  can  do  no  more  than 
utter  some  words  of  warning  for  the  few 
who  have  ears  to  hear,  the  tidal  wave  of 
change  not  being  confined  to  particular  coun- 
tries or  regions. 

I,  too,  when  Prime  Minister,  was  blind  to 
the  reality,  having  been  born  and  reared  in 
an  atmosphere  as  foreign  to  that  of  the 


60       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

masses  as  the  atmosphere  of  the  Winter  Pal- 
ace was  foreign  to  the  peasants  of  Russia. 

We  staggered  under  the  load  of  a  wealthy 
and  titled  upper  class.  They  consumed  the 
people's  time  and  imposed  infinite  misery  on 
some  millions  of  toilers,  and  for  these  things 
we  rewarded  the  men  at  the  top  with  fresh 
titles. 

As  you  know,  I  led  the  Conservative  Party 
in  England  for  many  years,  but  that  Party 
was,  and  still  is,  avid  for  power. 

The  Liberal  Party  was  made  up  of  men 
using  Nonconformity  as  an  instrument  of  ad- 
vancement. They  placed  opportunity  above 
the  truth,  position  above  principle,  power 
above  progress.  We  were  all  intellectual  au- 
tomatons, set  in  motion  by  springs  wound  up 
by  leaders  who  were  themselves  automatons. 

England  goes  by  machinery.  Her  very  ex- 
istence is  mechanical.  Now,  when  a  loose 
screw  stops  the  evolution  of  the  wheels,  the 
whole  nation  stops. 

In  what  way  can  we  be  said  to  excel  in 
probity  of  conduct  the  people  of  Ireland?  In 
what  way  are  we  superior  to  Irish  politi- 
cians? The  scandals  that  occurred  in  London 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       61 

during  the  war  would  not  have  been  tolerated 
in  Dublin  under  an  Irish  Parliament.  And 
still  England  is  being  led  by  a  Welsh  Calvinist, 
opposed  by  a  Scottish  humorist  who  says  his 
prayers,  backed  by  Anglican  agnostics  and 
middle-class  dissenters  overwhelmed  with 
fear. 

We  always  imitate  the  French,  but  while 
we  accepted  Voltairianism  in  principle,  the 
French  had  the  courage  to  put  it  into  prac- 
tice. 

While  the  French  became  practical  pagans 
in  1789,  we  became  practical  hypocrites. 

It  is  this  element  that  has  created  the  mor- 
al indifference  of  the  Anglican  Church  and 
the  intellectual  apathy  of  the  so-called  Non- 
conformist conscience.  This  is  why  there  is 
no  stability  behind  the  old  phraseology,  the 
old  ceremonials,  the  old  confessions  of  faith — 
now  so  many  catch-words  which  the  people 
abhor.  And  this  is  why  the  working  men  find 
it  so  easy  to  send  their  leaders  to  Parliament. 
For  the  same  reason  Russian  radicalism  is 
certain  of  a  warm  welcome  on  English  soil. 

It  is  true  that  this  hypocrisy  is  subconsci- 
ous, having  had  its  origin  during  the  French 


62       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

Revolution.  This  renders  it  far  more  danger- 
ous because  political  leaders  in  England  to- 
day are  mentally  incompetent  to  realize  the 
danger  that  lies  before  them. 

We  cannot  reason  with  people  whose  vision 
is  dulled  by  four  generations  of  moral  apathy. 
Hence  they  will  continue  to  "kick  against  the 
pricks"  to  the  bitter  end.  There  will  be  strife 
added  to  strife,  confusion  to  confusion,  and 
they,  themselves,  will  invite  the  drastic 
events  which  must  follow  so  much  stubborn 
resistance  to  the  demands  of  common  jus- 
tice and  the  progress  of  civilization. 


PRINCE  BISMARCK 
Recorded  November  3d,  1920 

When  I  imposed  an  indemnity  of  five  bil- 
lion francs  on  the  French  people  in  1870  we 
knew  that  the  money  could  and  would  be 
paid.  But  there  is  no  parallel  between  Ger- 
many* in  1920  and  France  in  1870.  The  Rep- 
arations Commission  has  only  succeeded  in 
proving  its  incompetence.  The  German  dele- 
gates have  shown  that  the  Allied  war  claims 
amount  to  more  than  five  hundred  billion 
marks  (gold),  which  is  nearly  four  thousand 
billions  at  the  present  rate  of  exchange. 

This  fantastic  sum,  one  hundred  times 
more  than  France  paid  to  Germany  in  1870, 
is  expected  of  a  country  on  the  verge  of  revo- 
lution and  chaos.  I  charge  this  Commission 
with  incompetence,  extravagance,  luxurious 
living,  and  claims  at  once  absurd  and  ridicu- 
lous. 

You  punish  some  of  the  most  dangerous 
criminals  by  indeterminate  sentences,  which 


64       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

frequently  end  after  a  year's  imprisonment, 
but  you  expect  to  hold  the  German  people  in 
financial  bondage  for  more  than  a  generation 
to  come  because  of  the  criminal  blunders  of 
less  than  a  hundred  individuals. 

I  was  blinded  by  material  factors  at  the  time 
of  my  seeming  triumphs  but  now  I  can  see 
some  of  the  things  which  will  never  come  to 
pass.  The  French  and  the  English  are  re- 
peating some  of  the  blunders  I  made  fifty 
years  ago.  They  are  counting  on  conditions 
which  will  never  exist,  like  a  bird  sitting  on  a 
nest  of  mixed  eggs  from  which  the  cuckoo 
will  eventually  oust  all  the  other  birds. 

French  people  are  under  the  illusion  that 
Russia  will  meet  the  obligations  undertaken 
by  the  late  Czar.  To  expect  such  a  thing 
shows  the  child-like  illusions  under  which 
French  fanatics  are  living.  They  are  still 
wrapped  in  the  swaddling  clothes  of  politics. 

We  committed  crimes  that  have  brought 
civilization  to  the  brink  of  chaos,  but  we  are 
not  capable  of  such  naivete. 

The  logic  of  a  Frenchman  is  no  better  than 
the  mysticism  of  a  Russian  or  the  sentimen- 
tality of  an  Englishman.  French  people 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       65 

learned  nothing  from  the  blunders  of  Napo- 
leon III  and  the  debacle  of  Sedan.  And  the 
reason?  They  have  remained  provincial  while 
the  Germans  imitated  the  commercial  cos- 
mopolitanism of  the  English. 

Advice  is  the  cheapest  of  all  things.  Never- 
theless, I  advise  your  statesmen  to  place  no 
reliance  on  sentimental  contracts  written  on 
paper  foredoomed  to  become  "scraps." 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  no  agree- 
ment signed  since  1913  is  worth  more  than 
the  seals.  In  Europe,  leaders  and  rulers  have 
passed  from  an  international  game  of  chess 
to  a  national  gamble  with  marked  cards. 

You  have  now  to  deal  with  an  element 
which  did  not  exist  in  my  time.  This  element 
embraces  all  factions  of  the  new  radicalism, 
no  matter  in  what  country  or  under  what 
leader.  Some  of  these  elements  may  unite, 
but  they  are  not  going  to  change.  How,  then, 
can  you  undertake  to  insure  the  future  by 
contracts  signed  and  sealed  by  elderly  gen- 
tlemen with  good  intentions  and  poor  judg- 
ment? 

The  war  gave  the  new  factions  the  long 
wished-for  opportunity.  They  seized  it  in 


66       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

Russia,  in  Germany,  in  Poland,  in  Britain, 
and  other  countries.  But  the  opportunities 
created  by  the  war  are  one  thing,  the  oppor- 
tunities of  tomorrow  will  be  different,  and  it 
is  this  contingency  for  which  your  leaders  are 
not  prepared.  You  will  have  to  select  men  of 
vision  who  will  judge  events  as  they  arrive, 
without  regard  to  the  distant  future,  which 
belongs  to  no  man. 

One  of  my  greatest  mistakes  was  in  sepa- 
rating Protestant  Prussia  from  the  interests 
of  the  Catholics  of  South  Germany. 

The  new  radicalism  is  opposed  to  some 
things  which  are  irrevocably  linked  with  re- 
ligious doctrine. 

Without  the  Catholic  Church  all  Europe 
would  be  in  the  throes  of  the  Commune.  The 
principal  cause  of  our  disintegration  was  that 
we  sanctioned  Protestant  flirtation  with  mod- 
ern materialism. 

France  is  beginning  to  see  that  even  a 
weak  monarchy  is  better  than  a  radical  gov- 
ernment without  a  God. 

You  may  expect  a  return  of  the  monarchy 
in  more  than  one  country.  Agnostics  and 
Protestants,  moved  by  fear  on  one  side,  and 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       67 

disgust  on  the  other,  will  unite  for  a  restora- 
tion as  their  last  hope.  There  will  be  a  repe- 
tition of  historic  events. 

Bonaparte  was  ushered  in  by  the  French 
Revolution,  and  his  advent  was  followed  by 
three  kings  and  one  emperor. 

The  majority  treat  their  rulers  as  children 
treat  their  toys:  when  the  novelty  wears  off 
a  change  is  demanded. 

Political  psychology  and  religious  senti- 
ment are  not  the  same  thing.  Nevertheless, 
they  must  be  considered  together.  The  Ger- 
mans are  now  awaiting  the  hour  when  the  in- 
evitable change  will  be  demanded.  Events 
take  crowns  from  some  heads  and  place  them 
on  others.  If  the  ex-Kaiser  ever  occupies  the 
throne  again  a  modern  Nero  will  fiddle 
amidst  the  ruins  of  German  imperialism,  for 
you  know  he  meddled  with  fiddle  strings  as 
well  as  with  political  wires. 

You  think  it  strange?  The  impossible  is 
always  happening.  Never  lose  sight  of  the 
fact  that  an  organized  minority  is  more  for- 
midable than  a  disorganized  majority.  Three 
men  brought  about  the  coup  d'etat  that 
placed  the  outcast  Louis  Napoleon  on  the 


68       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

throne,  one  man  started  the  Russian  Revo- 
lution, I  planned  the  overthrow  of  the  Second 
Empire  with  the  aid  of  Count  von  Moltke. 
The  majority  put  their  trust  in  numbers,  but 
the  bigger  a  thing  grows  the  nearer  it  is  to 
disintegration.  An  autocratic  minority  ruled 
in  Germany,  an  automatic  majority  rules  in 
France  and  England.  Two  men  started  the 
present  rule  in  Moscow,  both  of  them  from 
the  outside. 

"God  has  been  merciful  to  us,"  said  Ca- 
vour,  in  the  Italian  Senate,  "He  has  made 
Spain  one  degree  lower  than  Italy."  God  has 
been  merciful  to  Germany,  He  has  made  Rus- 
sian communism  more  abhorrent  than  Ger- 
man socialism. 

Nothing  will  be  left  undone  by  the  French 
government  to  secure  permanent  occupation 
of  the  coal  district  of  the  Rhine. 

Conditions  will  not  remain  long  as  they  are. 
They  are  preparing  decisive  coups  in  Bava- 
ria, Hanover,  Austria  and  Hungary.  New 
combinations  will  amaze  your  statesmen  and 
diplomats,  who  are  ignorant  of  the  fact  that 
changes  and  upheavals  operate  in  cycles  of 
three  and  seven.  What  they  call  chance  is  the 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       69 

working  of  law.  Spiritual  forces  operate 
through  the  physical,  and  nature  will  take  a 
hand  in  the  reactions  in  Petrograd  and  Mos- 
cow. Cold,  hunger  and  starvation  will  dissi- 
pate the  hopes  of  the  ruling  minority.  Un- 
told numbers  will  be  sacrificed. 

During  the  French  Revolution  philosophers 
and  thinkers  were  decapitated.  In  Russia 
such  men  are  killed  by  hunger,  the  difference 
being  one  of  method. 

Such  conditions  will  be  repeated  in  differ- 
ent countries  until  people  learn  that  the  spir- 
itual cannot  be  separated  from  the  material 
without  pain  and  slaughter. 

After  all  the  long-winded  conferences  and 
shorthand  reports  nothing  is  left  but  a  con- 
fusion of  blots  on  the  tissue  paper  of  time. 

I  may  say  more  on  another  occasion. 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

The  happy-go-lucky  humor  of  the  day  is  no 
match  for  the  cool  calculation  of  European 
communists.  English  and  American  humor- 
ists do  for  the  public  what  the  court  jester 
once  did  for  blase  kings. 

In  the  sardonic  temper  of  the  Russian  rev- 
olutionist, I  see  a  return  of  the  French  tem- 
per of  1793. 

Most  of  the  sermons  and  speeches  of  the 
time  are  chameleon  in  character  and  tepid  in 
feeling.  English  humorists  developed  a  flag- 
rant cynicism,  spotted  with  a  varioloid  para- 
dox, while  French  writers  have  halted  be- 
tween the  isolation  of  the  hospital  and  the  in- 
sularity of  the  home. 

The  war  brought  Anatole  France  to  his 
senses,  the  last  of  the  Gallic  wits,  who  pos- 
sessed a  greater  charm  than  Voltaire  with- 
out attaining  his  universal  prestige.  Prince 
Bismarck  declares  that  the  French  have 
learned  nothing  since  their  defeat  at  Sedan. 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       71 

Yet  French  writers  have  learned  more  from 
the  great  war  than  the  writers  of  any  other 
country. 

English  humor  is  meant  to  entertain  a 
public  lost  in  the  cynical  buffooneries  of  ma- 
terialism; American  humor  is  meant  to 
amuse  a  public  lost  in  the  mazes  of  extrava- 
gant pleasures  and  provincial  inanities. 

English  humor  has  a  certain  seal;  Ameri- 
can humor  a  certain  mark — the  difference 
between  sealing  wax  and  a  postage  stamp. 
Both  aim  to  fill  the  ghastly  gap  left  by  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  since  it  caught  the  fancy 
of  agnostic  freebooters  in  1870 — forerunners 
of  something  grimmer  than  the  Soviet  sym- 
bols of  a  return  of  puritanism  even  now 
creeping  into  view  as  ivy  creeps  up  the  water 
spouts. 

Laughter  will  vanish,  since  there  will  be 
nothing  left  to  laugh  at.  Dancing  will  cease, 
for  curfew  will  ring  at  nine  and  people  will 
begin  work  at  five. 

Remember  that  all  the  great  modern  move- 
ments had  an  obscure  origin.  Spiritualism 
began  in  a  country  farm-house,  Christian 


72       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

Science  developed  out  of  mediumship,  prohi- 
bition was  started  in  a  village,  woman's  suf- 
frage was  started  by  a  Quakeress,  Theosophy 
began  at  a  farm-house  in  Vermont,  the  Sal- 
vation Army  was  started  by  a  group  of  ob- 
scure persons. 

The  new  puritanism  will  start  by  a  com- 
mittee of  persons  unknown  to  the  public, 
chosen  from  the  ranks  of  the  Methodists, 
Baptists  and  Presbyterians.  Grim  determin- 
ists,  they  will  ignore  satire,  sarcasm  and 
irony,  ignore  party  politics,  ignore  the  oppo- 
sition of  luke-warm  Christians,  form  commit- 
tees, in  which  they  will  be  aided  by  drastic 
reactions  during  the  period  of  readjustment. 

Centers  will  soon  be  formed  in  Atlanta, 
Nashville,  Cleveland,  Boston,  Hartford,  Phila- 
delphia and  Washington,  D.  C. 

What  is  causing  so  much  crime?  Not  one, 
but  many  elements  of  decadence,  all  oper- 
ating together,  among  which  I  can  name  rag, 
jazz,  high  balls,  cabarets,  free  verse,  neuro- 
tic art,  sentimental  optimism,  cheap  notions 
of  progress,  neutral  sermons,  automobilism, 
lack  of  child  discipline,  absence  of  fear 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES        73 

among  people  under  the  age  of  forty — evils 
which  you  may  apply  to  all  English-speaking 
countries. 

The  licence  of  the  cities  dominates  country 
life  and  country  thought.  The  city  minority 
rules  the  majority  in  the  country,  and  it  is  in 
the  country  that  the  reaction  will  begin. 


JOHN  MARSHALL 
(Second  Message) 

Many  of  the  smaller  nations,  instead  of 
being  content  with  their  liberty,  have  thrown 
it  away  for  the  licence  that  always  goes  with 
land  grabbing.  For  a  nation  is  nothing  more 
than  an  individual  with  a  certain  amount  of 
collective  ambition. 

Much  of  the  work  of  the  League  of  Nations 
will  have  to  be  undone.  But  it  will  not  be  un- 
done by  any  League.  The  nations  will  settle 
differences  in  accordance  with  the  law  that 
permits  the  more  powerful  to  wield  control 
commensurate  with  their  geographical  and 
intellectual  importance. 

All  people  have  rights  which  ought  to  be 
respected,  but  some  have  privileges  as  well  as 
rights,  and  the  privileged  will  hold  the  upper 
hand  as  long  as  intelligence  takes  precedence 
of  illiteracy,  energy  dominates  over  lethargy, 
and  the  power  of  organized  numbers  rules 
over  minorities. 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES        75 

Your  statesmen  and  your  mediators  will 
have  to  learn  the  distinction  between  rights 
and  privileges.  All  are  supposed  to  possess 
common  rights  under  the  common  law,  but 
it  is  wisdom,  supported  by  poise  and  power, 
that  constitutes  privilege.  David  and  Solo- 
mon were  privleged.  So  were  Alfred  the 
Great,  Washington  and  Lincoln. 

A  nation  is  temperamental  like  an  individ- 
ual. The  temperament  may  be  vascillating  or 
it  may  be  stolid;  it  may  be  logical  or  it  may 
be  commercial;  or  a  combination  of  the  Saxon 
and  the  Celt. 

The  nations  that  will  hold  the  balance  of 
power  in  the  future  will  be  the  ones  with  the 
most  will  and  poise,  backed  by  number. 
Riches,  alone,  will  not  save.  Wealth  did  not 
save  Germany  from  disaster,  nor  did  it  help 
Nopoleon  III  to  ward  off  the  Prussian  inva- 
sion in  1870.  Wealth  invites  invasion  and 
conquest.  This  is  why  England  and  America 
will  now  be  the  principal  target  for  the  am- 
bitious and  the  discontented.  This  is  why 
Japan  seeks  a  firm  foothold  in  China,  and  the 
Russians  an  entrance  to  India  through  Persia. 


76       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

Without  the  prospects  of  loot  there  would 
be  no  war.  When  ambition  and  glory  lure  a 
nation  on,  the  desire  for  loot  supplies  the  mo- 
tor force.  When  hunger  forces  a  people  to  in- 
vade a  nation,  loot  becomes  a  necessity. 

What  the  wealthy  of  every  nation  refuse 
to  understand,  or  even  to  consider,  is  that  ma- 
terial force  engenders  vanity,  individualism, 
rivalry  and  envy.  All  manifestations  of  force 
contain  an  element  of  disintegration.  The 
type  of  a  nation  will  always  represent  the  pol- 
icy and  the  trend  of  the  nation. 

The  supreme  blunder  of  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence was  made  when  the  delegates,  with 
Mr.  Wilson  at  their  head,  refused  to  face  the 
fact  that  no  nation  can  rise  above  the  ideals 
and  idiosyncrasies  of  the  national  tempera- 
ment, and  that  sudden  liberation  from  re- 
straint is  as  dangerous  for  a  country  as  it  is 
for  an  individual. 

There  is  but  one  step  between  liberty  and 
licence,  and  that  step  meant  pandemonium 
for  all  classes  in  Russia.  For  other  peoples  it 
may  mean  political  bondage  and  the  total  loss 
of  a  national  spirit.  For  the  Hindoos  it  will 
mean  civil  wars  between  the  different  native 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       77 

rulers,  for  China  it  has  meant  a  series  of  re- 
volutions and  counter  revolutions  which  may 
have  to  be  suppressed  by  the  drastic  hand  of 
a  Japanese  Bonaparte. 

The  League  Conference  at  Versailles  took 
no  account  of  the  working  of  natural  law. 
Sentimentality  was  the  key-note  of  Mr.  Wil- 
son's idealism,  and  commercial  expansion  the 
dominant  idea  of  his  opponents. 

As  for  religion  exerting  any  fundamental 
influence  for  peace  and  right  thinking,  it 
caused  Protestants  to  fight  Protestants  and 
Catholics  to  fight  Catholics,  while  German 
and  Austrian  cardinals  did  all  in  their  power 
to  aid  in  the  invasion  and  conquest  of  Belgium 
and  France,  on  one  hand,  and  Italy,  the 
stronghold  of  the  Papal  See,  on  the  other; 
and  all  this  in  the  face  of  the  statement  of 
the  Kaiser  that  Catholicism  must  be  destroy- 
ed. Nothing  like  it  has  been  known  since  the 
dawn  of  Christianity. 

The  only  apparent  reason  for  the  quies- 
cent attitude  of  some  of  the  smaller  nations 
is  that  they  are  without  the  material  means 
of  waging  war  on  their  neighbors. 


78       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

Just  as  long  as  politicians  are  impelled  by 
self-interest  there  will  be  found  nations  that 
will  have  to  use  force  for  the  suppression  of 
licence  and  the  curtailment  of  liberty.  In  ev- 
ery country  the  people  are  getting  what  their 
thoughts  and  deeds  create  for  them. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Events  come  and  go  in  cycles — there  is  a 
beginning,  a  middle  and  an  end.  The  League 
of  Nations  had  a  beginning  and  it  will  have 
an  end.  But  what  kind  of  an  end?  Will  it  be 
one  of  victory  or  one  of  ignominy? 

The  two  fatal  blunders  of  the  Kaiser  and 
his  cohorts  consisted  in  the  delusion  that 
England  could  not  raise,  equip  and  transport  a 
body  of  troops  sufficient  to  offer  adequate  re- 
sistance to  the  invaders  of  France  in  con- 
junction with  the  French  and  Belgian  armies, 
and  that  America  could  not  or  would  not  join 
the  European  Allies. 

At  the  present  juncture  the  inimical  forces, 
both  in  continental  Europe  and  in  America, 
are  repeating  the  old  blunders  under  fresh 
conditions. 

History  is  a  repetition  of  the  old  tunes  with 
new  variations.  Just  now  the  fireworks  of 
sophistry  and  rhetoric  drown  out  the  familiar 
tune  and  what  is  heard  is  the  buzz-saw  of 
political  machinery. 


80       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

Hyenas  are  gnawing  the  bones  left  by  the 
lion  rampant  of  Czardom;  and  Siberia,  the 
remnant,  is  being  consumed  by  jackals  from 
Japan.  It  remains  to  be  seen  how  long  voters 
with  American  pedigrees  will  be  influenced 
by  demagogues  who  would  induce  them  to 
part  with  their  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pot- 
tage burnt  on  the  bottom. 

The  longer  you  wink  at  anarchy  in  Europe 
the  greater  will  be  the  menace  of  social  chaos 
at  home.  The  worship  of  shibboleths  cannot 
be  kept  up  beyond  a  point  where  the  majority 
grow  tired  of  hocus-pocus  politics  and 
academical  agnosticism. 

There  should  be  harmony  of  interests  in 
dealing  with  the  people  of  Mexico,  from  whom 
you  have  much  to  learn  in  many  ways. 

The  Obregon  Government  should  be  recog- 
nized at  Washington  and  immediate  steps 
taken  to  insure  cordial  relations  between  the 
two  countries. 

The  City  of  Mexico  is  a  capital  with  a  great 
future. 

You  are  about  to  pass  through  a  period  of 
'great  confusion.  Warnings  have  been  given 
hut  not  heeded.  Unless  you  cease  to  theorize, 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       81 

and  propagate  a  spirit  of  justice  and  judg- 
ment, the  near  future  will  develop  something 
more  than  storms  in  the  blue  china  teapots  of 
diplomacy. 


ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

Washington  needs  a  breaker  of  images. 

The  pedestrian  sauntering  down  Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue  cannot  but  note  the  hefty  Han- 
cock on  horseback,  looking  as  if  he  had  just 
left  a  meeting  of  ward  politicians,  and,  in  an- 
other part  of  the  city,  McClellan,  the  Beau 
Brummel  of  the  Civil  War,  on  a  charger,  snif- 
fing the  smoke  of  battle  from  a  safe  distance, 
and  others  whose  names  are  writ  in  water  but 
whose  effigies  remain  in  bronze. 

To  the  scrap  heap  with  these,  and  in  their 
places  erect  memorials  for  the  women,  who 
did  as  much  for  America  as  Joan  of  Arc  did 
for  France,  the  intrepid  pioneers  of  their 
race,  the  prophetic  patriots  of  the  nineteenth . 
century— Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton,  Lucretia 
Mott  and  Susan  B.  Anthony. 

It  would  take  a  Lincoln  Memorial  to  depict 
their  serenity,  a  National  Capitol  to  symbol- 
ize their  nobility,  a  Washington  Monument 
to  typify  the  towering  height  of  their 
achievement  and  the  scope  and  clarity  of  their 
vision. 


STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS 

A  war  between  America  and  England 
would  fill  your  homes  with  desolation  and 
bring  ruin  to  the  whole  country.  Do  your  sins 
of  omission  merit  such  a  punishment?  I  am 
here  to  tell  you  what  to  expect  if  such  a  hur- 
ricane of  disaster  ever  sweeps  the  two  coun- 
tries. 

Millions  of  people  are  under  the  impression 
that  the  United  States  can  act  independently 
of  the  conditions  prevailing  in  the  other  great 
nations.  This  suggestion,  coming,  as  it  did, 
from  a  professional  joker  in  England,  has  met 
with  eager  response  from  revolutionary  emis- 
saries now  in  your  midst,  supported  by  politi- 
cal fillibusters  who  are  masking  the  truth. 

If  England  ever  starts  such  a  war  she  will 
lose  India.  Her  direction  of  the  reins  of  civili- 
zation in  many  quarters  of  the  world  would 
cease  on  the  day  hostilities  began.  But  I  am 
speaking  for  America. 


84       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

A  war  with  England  would  Russianize  the 
United  States  within  three  months.  Even  if 
the  navy  could  keep  the  enemy  at  a  safe  dis- 
tance the  destructive  forces  at  home  would 
loot  the  principal  cities  and  spread  terror 
from  ocean  to  ocean. 

The  first  to  lose  in  such  an  upheaval  would 
be  the  wealthy  propagandists  of  disorder  and 
violence,  who,  living  in  security  now,  would 
be  hurled  with  destructive  force  against  the 
weapons  of  their  own  creation. 


GENERAL  BENJAMIN  H.  GRIERSON 

Late  Commander  of   the  Military  Depart- 
ment of  Southern  California,  Arizona 
and  New  Mexico 

In  1914  western  civilization  was  threatened 
by  a  military  autocracy  centralized  at  Berlin. 
Europe  is  now  threatened  by  a  communistic 
tyranny  centralized  at  Moscow  and  by  an 
autocratic  aristocracy  centered  in  Japan,  anti- 
Christian,  anti-democratic,  anti-American. 
You  may  call  it  fate  or  destiny,  it  matters  not 
so  long  as  you  know  what  the  signs  and  por- 
tents are. 

We  can  see  what  is  going  on  in  the  navy 
yards  of  the  Nipponese  Empire.  We  have 
noted  the  strenuous  efforts  put  forth  in  naval 
preparations  there. 

A  Japanese  Bonaparte  will  soon  dominate 
China  and  prevent  Christian  propaganda 
throughout  Asia.  I  could  give  you  the  dates 
fixed  for  certain  maneuvers  and  events  in 
connection  with  Japanese  ambitions  relating 


86       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

to  America,  but  they  could  change  the  dates. 
Suffice  it  to  say  they  are  making  ready  as 
fast  as  possible,  much  faster  than  many  in 
this  country  could  be  made  to  believe.  When 
the  decisive  moment  arrives  for  action  it  will 
come  suddenly,  like  the  invasion  of  Belgium 
by  the  Germans. 

Here  are  some  of  their  expectations:  — 

The  invasion  of  the  coast  of  Mexico  and  a 
coalition  of  Japanese  forces  with  some  mili- 
tary faction  in  Mexico  likely  to  be  of  practical 
aid,  the  bombing  of  American  cities  on  the 
Pacific  Coast  from  the  air,  virtual  cessation 
of  communication  between  certain  sections 
east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  California, 
brought  about  not  so  much  by  physical 
means  as  by  revolutionary  influences.  They 
are  counting  on  a  Soviet  revolution  east  of 
the  Rockies  while  they  are  gaining  a  foothold 
in  California. 

One  of  their  first  attempts  would  be  to 
bomb  the  railway  passes  in  the  Cascades  and 
the  Sierra  Nevadas. 

General  Grant  has  warned  you  in  regard 
to  the  Panama  Canal  and  other  points  that 
need  immediate  attention.  Millions  would  be 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       87 

alarmed  if  they  could  realize  how  much  the 
Government  at  Washington  resembles  the 
British  Government  just  before  the  German 
descent  into  Belgium.  Are  they  waiting  un- 
til they  can  spy  the  enemy  through  field 
glasses? 

I  could  give  a  map  of  the  plans  of  approach 
of  the  Japanese  navy,  intended  to  operate  in 
separate  units,  but  it  would  do  no  good.  They 
are  ready  to  change  their  tactics  at  any  time, 
and  have  done  so  more  than  once. 

Let  me  add  that  the  bellicose  attitude  of 
the  war  party  in  Japan  is  such  that  a  war  be- 
tween England  and  America  would  be  hailed 
as  a  symbol  of  their  divine  destiny. 

Do  not  be  surprised  when  I  say  that  they 
proclaim  the  end  of  Christian  civilization  was 
reached  when  the  Anglo-Saxons  took  posses- 
sion of  the  Pacific  Coast. 

In  the  Far  East,  British  domination  at- 
tained its  zenith  in  India;  in  America,  Anglo- 
Saxon  influence  attained  its  limit  in  Cali- 
fornia. The  possession  of  the  Pacific  Coast 
of  North  America  is,  therefore,  the  limit  for 
the  dominant  white  race.  The  tocsin  has 


88       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

sounded  for  a  Japanese  avatar  who  will  unify 
the  political,  commercial  and  religious  forces 
of  Japan  and  China,  give  the  coup  de  grace 
to  a  tottering  civilization  and  dominate  the 
world.  So  do  they  reason  and  preach. 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 

What  do  the  clouds  on  the  social  horizon 
predict?  Is  Nature  a  book  of  fate?  If  so,  is 
it  sealed  or  open?  Whoever  understands  the 
political  actions  of  the  past  can  foresee  the 
reactions  of  the  future. 

Human  nature  is  always  the  same. 

The  two  things  brought  to  the  surface  by 
great  upheavals  are  extreme  virtues  and  ex- 
treme vices.  The  virtue  of  self  sacrifice,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  vice  of  self  interest  on  the 
other.  Vice  is  flexible,  cunning,  adaptable. 

You  are  living  at  a  time  when  profiteers 
amaze  by  their  cynical  audacity,  but  profit- 
eers have  always  existed.  Before  the  war  the 
nobles  of  Russia  and  Germany  were  profiteers 
in  landed  privileges  and  governmental  per- 
quisites. The  tillers  of  the  soil  were  free  in 
name,  serfs  in  practice.  In  England  two  or 
three  hundred  lords  and  peers  possess  the 
land.  In  America  food  profiteering  began  dur- 
ing the  Civil  War.  This  national  vice  has 
never  been  attacked  at  the  roots. 


90       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

Your  age  is  characterized  by  a  high  level 
of  predatory  ability  and  a  low  level  of  pro- 
phetic visibility. 

The  old  hackneyed  phrase,  "This  is  a  free 
country,"  has  been  applied  in  varying  degrees 
according  to  the  caprice  of  the  individual  with 
the  most  aggressive  will. 

New  words,  definitions,  excuses,  have  been 
invented  to  meet  the  new  conditions,  but  of 
all  the  words  yet  brought  into  use,  "camou- 
flage" is  the  only  one  that  covers  the  cynical 
effrontery  of  predatory  hypocrisy.  It  is  a 
vocable  of  universal  utility.  It  applies  to  the 
cock-pits  of  commerce  as  well  as  to  the  arena 
of  bull  and  bear  politics. 

It  depicts  a  Hindoo  patience  in  the  pulpit 
and  a  Hoodoo  palsy  in  the  pews. 

The  word  "democracy"  itself  is  the  stripes 
painted,  on  the  sides  of  the  old  Ship  of  State 
in  her  zig-zag  course  to  elude  the  torpedoes  of 
the  proletarian  submarines. 

A  capitalistic  profiteer  is  a  high  brow  op- 
timist who  lives  by  the  sweat  of  the  low  brow 
pessimist.  The  stretching  process  will  cease 
suddenly  like  the  snapping  of  a  rubber  string 
stretched  beyond  the  limit. 


PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES       91 

The  masses  withojut  a  voice  always  find  ar- 
ticulation in  the  unlooked-for  man,  the  un- 
looked-for group. 

The  people  without  a  mouthpiece  are  a  mob, 
and  no  mob  can  run  itself  for  more  than  a 
few  days.  It  is  the  initiated  who  lead,  and 
leadership  requires  time,  patience,  judgment. 

In  the  world  of  genius  there  are  no  up- 
starts. 

The  great  leader  never  rises  suddenly. 
Bonaparte  was  a  military  graduate,  Grant 
was  a  product  of  West  Point,  Lincoln  was 
thirty  years  preparing  for  the  Presidency, 
Lenine  spent  twenty  years  in  the  study  of 
economics.  All  countries  have  the  same  ex- 
perience. 

Voltaire  endowed  the  middle  classes  of 
France  with  a  voice,  united  the  disaffected  of 
all  classes,  and  peppered  their  indignation 
with  pungent  epigrams.  He  created  an  intel- 
lectual garden  for  lovers  of  liberty,  and  from 
the  realm  of  the  mind  flung  the  thorns  of 
ridicule  in  the  face  of  titled  imbeciles  and 
crowned  the  heads  of  scholars  with  laurel. 


92       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

The  people  of  France  were  washed  by  Louis 
XIV,  wrung  by  Louis  XV,  and  dried  in  the 
back  yard  of  tyrannical  economics  by  Louis 
XVI. 

But  it  was  the  orators  and  pamphleteers 
who  ironed  out  the  frills  and  furbelows  of  the 
old  order. 

Statistical  facts  may  convince  but  they  do 
not  compel.  Who  knows  how  the  French  Rev- 
olution would  have  ended  had  Mirabeau,  ora- 
tor of  the  great  and  solemn  days,  survived  to 
put  into  action  the  idealism  of  Rousseau?  In- 
tellect alone  never  passes  the  halfway  house. 
When  intellect,  reason  and  emotion  are  fused 
in  one,  the  summit  of  achievement  is  at- 
tained. 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

The  time  for  discipline  is  approaching. 
Happy  are  those  who,  under  Divine  direction, 
consent  to  be  led,  for,  in  the  words  of  Quin- 
tilian: — Nulla  poena  est  nisi  invito,  or  as 
Seneca  expressed  it,  Fata  volentum  ducunt, 
involentem  trahunt, — those  who  refuse  will 
be  dragged. 

You  must  in  some  manner  experience  the 
ordeals  common  to  other  peoples,  and  you 
have  seen  from  a  distance  what  has  over- 
taken many  cities  and  nations,  the  inhabi- 
tants of  which  felt  themselves  as  fixed  as  the 
rocks  in  the  soil.  Yet,  all  that  is  happening 
is  in  harmony  with  Divine  law.  You  will  find 
it  in  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah.  The  repetition  is 
inevitable  except  for  those  who  possess  vis- 
ion. 

The  time  for  appeals  is  past. 

"The  earth  mourneth  and  f adeth  away,  the 
world  languisheth  and  fadeth,  the  haughty 
people  of  the  world  do  languish." 


94       PSYCHO-PHONE  MESSAGES 

<rWhen  thou  shalt  cease  to  spoil,  thou  shaft 
be  spoiled,  and  when  thou  shalt  make  an  end 
to  deal  treacherously,  they  shall  deal  treach- 
erously with  thee." 

Are  the  people  astonished?  Let  them  mar- 
vel at  their  own  willfulness. 

"The  kings  of  the  earth  and  all  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  world  would  not  have  believed 
that  the  adversary  and  the  enemy  should 
have  entered  into  the  gates  of  Jerusalem." 

Titus,  with  his  army,  destroyed  the  Holy 
City.  The  enemy  entered  the  gates  from 
without  but  your  adversaries  have  long  been 
entrenched  within. 

Mammon  is  heavily  laden  and  will  fall 
from  the  top.  Material  power  is  volatile. 

In  the  day  of  trial,  the  retainer  and  the 
hireling  will  seek  a  refuge,  every  man  for 
himself.  They  will  melt  like  the  wax  image 
before  the  heat  of  the  furnace.  On  that  day 
humility  will  be  as  a  precious  gift  and  pov- 
erty as  a  peace  offering. 

Blessed  is  he  who  uses  the  spade  and  the 
hoe,  for  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow  he  shall  eat 
the  bread  of  security. 


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